We visited Denali National Park. Mt Denali is the highest mountain of North America.
This sketch is how it is seen from Denali National Park, but only when the weather is clear, which is rare. The picture below shows what we actually saw.
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The view of Mt Denali from the Park Bus. If you remove the dark cloud it looks like the sketch above.
To visit the Park one has to take a bus. It is an 8 hour round trip with many stops where hikes are possible. Pooling visitors in buses limits traffic jams and potential accidents
on the occasionally precarious narrow dirt road, and minimizes noise and interactions with the wild animals. These and the wilderness landscape are the most attractions for Park visitors, aside from some mountaineers.
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A large Moose was spotted in the bushes near the road. The driver stops, explains and answers questions.
Mooses are strong, agressive and can kill. The Rangers suggest 75' distance from a moose, but that is difficult in a dense vegetation.
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Grizzly bears are seen quite frequently, but they are usually far from the bus since they like quietness.
They roam around in the meadows and have a vegetarian diet, except when the wolves make a kill. The creeks have rarely salmons since the Park is far from the ocean.
Toward the end of the summer the bears get into a feeding frenzy to accumulate as much fat as needed for the long winter sleep. Even cubs don't eat but suppress the metabolism.
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Wolves are difficult to spot but we were lucky. He took it easy walking on the road but turned away as the bus approached. It was a black lone wolf.
They hunt in packs and can bring down a large caribou. Grizzlies are on the top of the food chain and steal the catch from wolves.
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